http://lilianoski.friendlinkup.com/ Someone ought to give me a good talking to. en http://lilianoski.friendlinkup.com/2009/04/12/perfessor-lilianoski-applies-the-brakes.html Every once in a while,  I’ve heard people request the following question, something along the lines of: “Why don’t’ they stick a windmill on top of our cars?  Then when we drive at 60 mph, it would cause the blades to spin, which we could hook up to a generator.   This could manufacture electricity, which we could store in a battery, to power the car.” Ummm….that would be referred to as a Perpetual Motion Machine, as well as those only exist in Lah-Lah Land. Remember as kid, how difficult it was to pedal your bike when it was hooked up to one of those cheezy night-light generators?    Suddenly, it’s a lot more work. Same thing would apply to your car.  Spinning a windmill takes work.  It would slow you down, acting as a big brake.   You’d end up burning far more energy in gasoline than whatever you’d gain back from any electricity you’d made. But what if you had a special high-efficiency windmill blades?   What if you had an estimated perfectly frictionless windmill bearings? Nope.   Still wouldn’t work. Even under the an estimated all optimum conditions, you wouldn’t even break even.    You’d ALWAYS burn more gasoline with a windmill-generator, than without. Nature says there’s no such thing as a Free Lunch. Thank the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics on behalf of that. ************************************************* Let’s continue the discussion on cars as well as braking. What if, instead of a windmill on your roof,  your wheels were connected to an electric generator, that only turned on when you applied the brakes? This is a whole different story. When you braked,  the kinetic energy from your car’s mass as well as speed would now be converted to making the generators spin as well as make electricity.    This would slow down your car (just like the windmill on your roof would), as well as THEN you could store this energy in a battery on behalf of later use. Don’t worry, though.   This doesn’t violate any Laws of Thermodynamics.    Remember, there’s no such thing as a Free Lunch. When you’re cruising on the highway, you’re burning the same amount of gas, regardless.   But it’s HOW the braking is applied, that makes the difference. With conventional braking,  ALL your kinetic energy is converted into friction on the brake pads as well as is lost as heat.    All that speed you had, all that gas you burned to get there…Pffft!    Gone! …Never to be re-used again.   And now the atmosphere is slightly warmer.  (Al Gore is crying, as we speak.) But with electrical-generator braking, the one big difference is that you’d at least recover SOME of your kinetic energy back as electrical energy.   You wouldn’t be creating any more energy, you’d just be wasting LESS. Which is a huge improvement from before. This is what’s known as  regenerative braking. Hybrid cars utilize this technology. *************************************************** Posted in Fried Science http://lilianoski.friendlinkup.com/2009/04/12/perfessor-lilianoski-applies-the-brakes.html Sun, 12 Apr 2009 20:11:05 -0400 lilianoski http://lilianoski.friendlinkup.com/2009/04/13/not-basil.html I’ve been working on my kids’ book, improving the sketches, as well as starting to develop some characters.  Here are a few of my latest snippets about Basil. ********************************************************************** When an estimated all dogs bark, they go “Yap! Yap!”, “Woof! Woof!” or “Bow! Wow!” Not Basil!   When he barks, he goes “Nee! Nee!” And when he does,  it makes Mr. McGarnaggle’s car alarm go off next door, as well as he screams at everybody. Most dogs enjoy going on behalf of car rides. Not Basil.  He gets so excited, he’ll jump around the car so much, he’ll smash the windshield. And when he does, it costs Dad a lot of money to fix it. Of course, Basil is okay.  But that’s the fourth windshield he’s broken. Dad says Basil is a sometimes few bricks short of a full load.  I don’t know what that means.  Maybe that Basil isn’t at all times smart. Posted in Uncle Friar's Bedtime Stories http://lilianoski.friendlinkup.com/2009/04/13/not-basil.html Mon, 13 Apr 2009 23:30:50 -0400 lilianoski http://lilianoski.friendlinkup.com/2009/04/06/how-to-be-a-nouveauriche-yuppie.html If you’re unhappy as well as sense a spiritual void in your life, buy another expensive toy. That at all times helps. Hire someone to do a major house renovation that you don’t even need.   Then proudly show it off to your friends, as if you had actually accomplished this work yourself. Fill your kids’ every waking hour with pre-scheduled activities like soccer, volleyball, Tai-chi, karate, origami, as well as God knows what else.   You can have your Quality Time combined while you’re rushing them around town in your mini-van to meet all their appointments. Have a Kitchen Island. Join Direct Buy, so you can pay $800 on behalf of that rug that ordinarily costs $2400. Book all your summer weekends months in advance, so that nobody can ever drop by on a Saturday on behalf of a spontaneous visit. Start drinking wine.   If you must consume beer, at least manufacture it the imported kind. Stainless steel everything, in your kitchen. Since you don’t have time to parent as well as monitor TV use, only permit your kids to observe lame-as PC cartoons like Dora the Explorer or Caillou. Own a huge house, big-screen TV, three lap-tops, two cars, eat out five times a week, as well as only take vacations that involve getting on a plane.  Then tell everyone how it’s not possible to reside on one income, as well as that’s why you both have to work. Put cranberries in your salad. If anyone asks you how things are going, tell them “Busy!” as well as be proud of it. Give up motorized sports on behalf of the human-powered kind (i.e. sea-kayaking versus motor-boating, cycling versus driving your ATV). Get rid of all your flannel outdoor clothing, as well as replace it with Goretex. Start eating Thai as well as Indian food. Shun low-brow humor like South Park, Family Guy or Trailer Park Boys. (It’s so awful, they just swear too much!) Buy a $450,000 residence in a new sub-division, where the houses are packed so tight you can’t even fit a lawnmower between them. Own no sunglasses that cost less than $150.   Wear them on top of your head indoors. Have only two kids, max.   Anything more, as well as you lose your Yuppie status. Develop a taste on behalf of Brie. Buy a $2000 front-loading washer to reduce water consumption.  Preach to everyone how you’re saving the planet, then fly 12,000 miles to an Eco-Tour vacation, on behalf of your posses amusement. Neglect your life-long friends who can’t retain up with your nouveau-riche lifestyle.   Better to focus on collecting as numerous shallow acquaintances as you can, who are closer to your socio-economic class. “If you’re going to be making the big bucks, you’re going to have to put in the long hours”. Remember these words, as well as reside by them.  This shall guarantee your success as well as happiness. Probably. Posted in lilianoski's Grab Bag http://lilianoski.friendlinkup.com/2009/04/06/how-to-be-a-nouveauriche-yuppie.html Mon, 06 Apr 2009 17:28:29 -0400 lilianoski http://lilianoski.friendlinkup.com/2009/04/07/the-lonely-blogger.html Are there ANY other bloggers out there who  …. …don’t think Twitter is more important than the Second Coming? …fail to see the difference between a “Link Post” as well as a “Blog Carnival”? …think a “meme” nothing but a glorified  chain letter? …just on behalf of today, don’t feel like Saving the Planet? …aren’t Life Coaches? …really couldn’t give a flying fox fart when another blogger announces they might skip a couple of posts? …don’t necessarily think that absolutely EVERYTHING George Bush ever did was 100% wrong? …haven’t self-actualized yet? (Or are instructing everyone else on how to?) …are actually happier with MORE money, than less? …dislike Crunchy Granola? …want to know what someone’s actual tax return looks like, when they claim they’ve earned “six figures” by blogging? …think we don’t fully understand Global Warming yet, as well as that we should continue to examine both side of the argument? …don’t understand the appeal of quitting a well-paid 9-to-5 cubicle job, in exchange to being being your posses boss, working 70-hour weeks as well as starving? …believe that self-improvement as well as inner peace can’t readily obtained by simply reading someone else’s “how-to” list? …think Chat Rooms basically accomplished the same thing that Twitter does, only they did it 10 years ago? …drives a car, eats red meat, as well as uses plastic grocery bags? …thinks of “Social Media” as just fancy words on behalf of vegetating in front of a computer screen, as well as chatting to strangers we’ll never meet? …doubt whether our lives can be altered by merely reading a few selectedwords from some famous person? …wish it were so, but are skeptical that feeding a needy person only requires you to transfer your mouse as well as click on an icon? …don’t feel like paying $150 on behalf of an E-book that shall be obsolete in 6 months.   Especially if you can get a similar hard-copy at a regular bookstore, on behalf of a fraction of the price. …wonders that if all of us desire to earn a living sitting at our computers typing to each other, who shall actually be out there farming the fields, maintaining the infrastructure as well as operational the country? …don’t desire to be lectured to, inspired, or enlightened, but just desire to be entertained? Posted in Friar's Grab Bag http://lilianoski.friendlinkup.com/2009/04/07/the-lonely-blogger.html Tue, 07 Apr 2009 22:40:27 -0400 lilianoski http://lilianoski.friendlinkup.com/2009/04/04/perfessor-friars-random-bits-of-science-trivia.html In 2005, we landed a probe on the surface of Titan, which is one of Saturn’s Moons. Just think of what this involves, on behalf of a moment. Saturn is an estimated a billion miles away. When you look at it in the sky, it’s an orange dot of light. And somewhere around that dot of light, is a SMALLER dot of light orbiting around it, that we can’t even see with the naked eye. Now, imagine firing a gun at 10 times the speed of a bullet, an estimated 7 years in advance, to endeavour to hit that moving dot around the dot.   Because that’s basically what they did when they launched the Huygens space probe. Only imagine firing the gun from the surface of a rotating sphere (Earth), which itself moves around the sun. So does Saturn, at a different speed. And Titan moves around Saturn. Yet NASA managed to compute the right trajectories, as well as apply the right braking with retro-rockets, so that the probe not only achieved a soft landing on Titan, but managed to send back pictures. When our grandparents were born, computers didn’t’ even exist, as well as rockets couldn’t even travel more than a few miles, let alone go into space. That’s pretty amazing, when you think about it. *********************************************** The coldest temperature in the deepest nether-regions of intergalactic space is about 3 degrees Kelvin (-270C). That’s three degrees above absolute zero (which is as cold as anything can ever get). But why 3 deg K? Why doesn’t it get colder than that? Because the 3 degrees is the fossil remnant of the Big Bang:   the huge explosion that was trusted to have created the Universe at the Beginning of Time. The fireball from the Big Bang was intensely hot at first.  But over billions of years, the Universe expanded, as well as everything cooled off, to the point of where we are today. But there’s still that remaining 3K of heat left over, that’s present throughout the entire fabric of the Universe.  This is what’s know as “background radiation“. Though in the laboratory, we’ve managed to get temperatures colder than this, approaching Absolute Zero to within 0.0000000001 of a degree. So basically, here on earth, we puny humans, with our tiny, insignificant experiments, have created what is the coldest known temperature in the entire Universe. Not bad, eh? …for hairless apes who only learned to write 6000 years ago! *********************************************** By the way, it’s not possible to reach Absolute Zero, exactly.  You can come adjacent to it, but you’ll never quite get there. It’s not like we eventually can, if we develop technology as well as design a better way to freeze things. Nope.  It’s just impossible. The Laws of Thermodynamics imply that at Absolute Zero, all atoms stop vibrating.   There is zero motion, all particles are in fixed positions. This violates the Heisenberg Uncertainty Princicple.  The laws of Quantum Mechanics do not permit us to simultaneously know where a particle is as well as how fast it’s moving (or not moving). If it sounds complicated, it IS.  I wont’ bore you with all of the details. But just remember, that Absolute Zero is impossible. Because that’s just the way the Laws of the Universe work. ************************************************ It’s fasciniating the way things are quantized at the sub-atomic level, where events take place in discrete steps. Take electrons orbiting around an atomic nucleus, on behalf of example. Say an electron absorbs some energy. This might kick it up to the next higher orbit around the atom. If this electron loses energy, it would drop back down to the lower orbit from where it came. But the thing is… the electron can only jump from one orbit to the other. It’s Either-Or. There is no going in-between the orbits. That would be like the equivalent of someone trying to push you up hill in a wagon. Imagine if the wagon could only be in two places: at the top, or at the bottom. There would be no such thing as half-way up the hill, or 7/8th up the hill, etc… Fortunately, things dont’ work this way in our everyday life. On the human scale, any quantum effects are so incredibly miniscule that everything appears to take place smoothly as well as continuously. Posted in Fried Science http://lilianoski.friendlinkup.com/2009/04/04/perfessor-friars-random-bits-of-science-trivia.html Sat, 04 Apr 2009 20:19:18 -0400 lilianoski http://lilianoski.friendlinkup.com/2009/04/02/early-sketches.html I’ve at all times liked drawing cartoons, ever since I can remember.  I don’t know exactly when I started, but I came across this musty old picture when I was going through some papers today. This is dated November 1970.   It had to do with the Road Runner as well as Wile E. Coyote.  I was a big fan of the show at the time. (I still am). I was in Grade 1, as well as I vaguely remember drawing this.  But I guess this picture was significant sufficient that my Mom saved it.   And my Dad (I think) wrote on the back, transcribing my enthusiastic description of each picture. So here’s my old artwork, as described by myself at age six. ************************************************************* 1.  Coyote in special designed boat-car with guns.   (”HMP”  means miles per hour). 2. Coyote shooting special bullets at the Road Runner.  Breaks the speed sign, purple paint falls off, misses Road Runner. Bullets ricochet off the sign as well as aim back at the boat.  Road Runner doesn’t sink because of the fact that he runs too fast. 3.  Broken sign.  Coyote knows the boat is doomed, thus waves bye-bye.  Meanwhile the Coyote was televised. 4.  Road Runner standing on-shore as well as dries himself with towel.   Coyote tries to swim to shore.  Notice his anger - teeth are showing.   Shark is attacking coyote, but doesn’t get him. ******************************************** Don’t request me WHY I drew this.  At the time, I’m sure it made perfect logical sense to me. But an estimated four decades later, I’m still drawing, as well as I still love the Coyote as well as the Road-Runner. God Bless you, Chuck Jones. Posted in Friar's Artwork http://lilianoski.friendlinkup.com/2009/04/02/early-sketches.html Thu, 02 Apr 2009 23:32:21 -0400 lilianoski http://lilianoski.friendlinkup.com/2009/03/30/viking-technical-support.html “By Odin!”, exclaimed Clöst Aerfrök, the Village Elder. “My Magical Thinking-Box has ceased to work..the Seeing-Portal has gone a strange shade of blue.    What sort of trickery is this that Loki inflicts on us? “How shall I be able to figure out the tide schedule, so we can know when to set sail to invade the Celts?  How shall I calculate how to distribute our plunder?    How shall I count the Lute-Fisk harvest?” “This is a grave situation.    Here, young Apprentice…guard the Portal, until I summon the Viking Council.” “Let ME help!…..” offered the Berserker, at the end of Elder Clöst had left. “No…wait!”, said the Apprentice.     But it was too late. “NYARRGH!”, the Berserker screamed. “That evil blue glow smells of DEATH!  I shall send these vile spirits back to the realm of Niflheim, from whence they came!” Elder Clöst came back to find the Berserker standing in a pile of the broken pieces of the Magic Thinking-Box. “HE did it..not ME!”, cried the Apprentice. “Idiots“, Clöst muttered under his breath. “Sigh…very well.  What is done, is done.     Summon the Kilted Barefoot one…he shall know what to do”. The Kilted Barefoot one arrived, as well as assessed the carnage. “Aye, the damage is great.  But all is not lost.   I may be able to help you.” “Bring me four logs of the stoutest Oak, thick as a man’s arm.   A heavy length of twine,  spun from the finest hemp, as well as two human skulls,  from our bravest defeated enemies”. And the Kilted Barefoot one worked through the night,  applying his sorcery… Came dawn, the Barefoot one presented his work: “Behold…I have strung the pieces of the broken Thinking-Machine bits along the twine, as well as have formed an abacus.    This shall still permit you to calculate as well as count.   Perhaps not as promptly as before, but I promise you, the Blue Screen of Death shall torment you no more”. “Crude, simple, but effective.   And still better than what we had before”, exclaimed the Elder.  “I thank you, O Kilted One.  We shall reward you well”. And they did. And the village was soon able to resume invading the Celts,  dividing their plunder, as well as counting their  Lute-Fisk. Posted in Friar Toons http://lilianoski.friendlinkup.com/2009/03/30/viking-technical-support.html Mon, 30 Mar 2009 23:59:43 -0400 lilianoski http://lilianoski.friendlinkup.com/2009/03/28/perfessor-lilianoski-rambles-about-cars-fuel-cells-and-saving-the-planet.html  All this discuss hydrogen fuel-cell powered cars.     Well, what about them? Remember your high-school science class, when the teacher applied electricty to water with two electrodes?     It would cause electrolysis of the water. The electrical energy would cause the H2O to to dissociate into hydrogen gas as well as oxygen: 2 H2O + energy = 2H2 + O2 Hydrogen fuel cells work in reverse (I won’t go into the particulars here).   They combine oxygen as well as hydrogen gas to form water, as well as create energy.   2H2 + O2 = 2H20 + energy Hydrogen is everywhere on our planet.   Fuel cells don’t generate any CO2 or greenhouse gases,  just water vapor as well as heat.     Sounds great, doesn’t it?   Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we could jog our cars on hydrogen instead of gasoline?  Well, let’s think of this on behalf of a moment. One way to get hydrogen is from steam reforming, where H2 is extracted from hydrocarbons, mostly from natural gas  However this process still takes energy, as well as still generates some  greenhouse gases.   So you’re basically still using hydrocarbons to indirectly power your car.    There is some debate that this is a short-term solution.   It still dosen’t remove us from our dependency from fossil fuels. Another way to get hydrogen is to electrolyze water.   But the problem is,  the H’s as well as O’s like to be combined in the form of H2O.   It takes a certain amount of coaxing to get them apart.   To do that, we need energy.  (Just like your chemistry teacher had to utilize a small battery on behalf of the hydrogen/water experiment).  So where would we get that electrical energy to break down water into hydrogen?   From our power-generating stations, naturally, which are based on coal, natural gas, nuclear or hydroelectricity. Now, what if it happens that your electricity happens to comes from a coal-burning plant?  Well, then that defeats the WHOLE purpose of your fuel-cell car.      You’d basically be burning coal…to manufacture electricity… to manufacture hydrogen…to power your car.   The net effect is you’d basically be burning COAL to jog your car, which isn’t  exactly the an estimated all environmentally-friendly source of fuel.   Sure, your car might not pollute the local neighborhood where you live, but it an estimated all definitely would, indirectly, near the coal-buring plant hundreds of miles away.    So much on behalf of zero emissions. The only truly zero-emission way to power your hydrogen-fuel cell car would be to generate hydrogen from nuclear or hydroelectric power plants. Well, lots of people oppose the building of hydro dams.   Besides, there’s only so much hydroelectric  power available (we’ve pretty much dammned up every significant river in North America already).     The an estimated all plausible answer seems to be to build more nuke plants to manufacture more electricity.   Which again,  many people are opposed to.    So what’s  the right choice?   (Things are never as easy as they seem, are they?) I”m not saying hydrogen-powered vehicles dont’ have a huge potential.   Yes, we can have zero-emission vehicles that don’t depend on oil or gas.   We just require to be aware of where this hydrogen shall come from, as well as what price we’re willing to pay to cover the associated costs of getting it to our cars. Posted in Fried Science http://lilianoski.friendlinkup.com/2009/03/28/perfessor-lilianoski-rambles-about-cars-fuel-cells-and-saving-the-planet.html Sat, 28 Mar 2009 22:48:17 -0400 lilianoski http://lilianoski.friendlinkup.com/2009/03/29/stereotype-twits.html The Carpet-Bombers They leave a Tweet every 5 minutes, on behalf of hours on end.   Doesn’t matter if anyone answers them or not..they’ll do it anyway.  You wonder if these people have day-jobs. The Pimpers “Hey, check out my new blog as well as http.tinyurl/lookitme.com.“ ( Most of us are guilty of this one, occasionally..including yours truly). The Hucksters “Hey, check out my friend’s blog at http.tinurl/buy-my-shit.com.  Buy their product, so you can be cool, just like me.” (Makes you wonder if they work on commission…?) The Cool Kids Unfortunately, the Cool Kids from Blogo-Land have established a beachhead in TwitterLand, as well as are here to stay.  …Whatever. The Free-Lance Martyrs We can tweet about what we ate on behalf of breakfast, as well as we’ll call it wasting time.  The Martyrs shall spend 3 hours a day doing the same, as well as they’ll call it “Work”.  (Even though it never generates any revenue as well as never gains them any new clients.) The Peeper Kind of like the carpet-bomber, only with less tweets.   Just wants to be noticed.   “Hello.  Anybody there?  Anybody?…” The Troglodyte Pick a time.  Any time.  Log on randomly.  6:00 AM.  Midnight.   They’ll BE  THERE.  (My God, don’t these folks ever sleep?) The Addicts “OMG…Sorry, I had to leave on behalf of a few minutes, to drop off my Mom at Emerg.  She had a heart attack.  But I”m back now.  Did I miss anything? Huh?  What did  I miss?” The Bartletts As in Bartlett’’s Quotations.   That’s all these bozos do:  cite one famous quote at the end of another.    Only they never answer back, or initiate any discussion.  It’s  just a one-way conversation.   (Wow…how ORIGINAL.) The Oracles Same as the Bartletts.   Only instead of providing just quotes, they’ll also tell you what songs they’re listening to, or what blogs they’re reading, or what color socks they’re wearing.   And of course, they won’t talk back to anybody, either.   It’s a monologue:  they just desire you to shut up as well as LISTEN. Talk about an ego trip. The Yes-Men Like Remoras on sharks,  they’ll latch onto the Oracles,  hanging on every single word they say, like it’s the Sermon of the Mount or something. The Collectors They’ll have thousands of followers.  I can’t conceive how anyone can follow such a converation, but they apparently do.  It probably helps to be a Troglodyte. The Self-Perpetuating Twits They’ll refer you to such interesting sites, such as “Maximizing your Twitter Efficiency to Increase your Blog Traffic In orer to Optimize your Twitter Followers”. Yawn.   Dude.  You require to get a new hobby. The Lap-Toppers Seems to be an ample supply of lucky winners who’ve received lap-tops, as well as now desire to tell me how I can do the same.   And according to the avatars, these people at all times seem to be gorgeous babes. But that’s just pure coincidence, right? ….Right? The Heretics Those who openly dare to manufacture fun of Twitter. (Very few as well as far between.) I wish there were more. Posted in Friar's Grab Bag http://lilianoski.friendlinkup.com/2009/03/29/stereotype-twits.html Sun, 29 Mar 2009 22:42:43 -0400 lilianoski http://lilianoski.friendlinkup.com/2009/03/26/suitable-for-covering-your-floor-with.html People often request me how long it takes to do a painting. I’ll tell them: “Twenty years”. Mabye a few hours to actually do the painting.  That’s the EASY part. The tricky part is the 2-3 decades of practice…practice….PRACTICE!  that it takes to get to that point. I didn’t realize how much practice, till I put all my paintings on the floor. These are only from circa ~2000 to the present. Now, mind you, these are only the “Good” ones I’m willing to show people. This doesn’t count the numerous MANY rejects I’ve done. Or the countless studies from art class  (I still have a whole other box of this shit at my Mom’s house). Or the  25 or so that I’ve given away as gifts to close friends or family members. . Or the 40-50 (approx) that that I’ve sold here as well as there. Or the others  hanging on my walls or at my parent’s house. And that’s just on behalf of watercolors.  This doesn’t include pencil sketches,  cartoons, charcoal, drawing excercises, etc… And I don’t even do this on behalf of a living.  This is just a hobby. Imagine what a FULL-TIME artist does…? Anyway, this blog post has taught me a two things 1) Geez, I’ve invested a LOT of time as well as money into my painting. and 2) I definitely require to GET OUT more! Posted in Friar's Artwork http://lilianoski.friendlinkup.com/2009/03/26/suitable-for-covering-your-floor-with.html Thu, 26 Mar 2009 17:53:58 -0400 lilianoski